When A Dream Wife Disappears

A new best seller takes a disconcerting look below the surface of a "perfect" marriage.

By Mary Beth Vallar

Vero Beach artist and gallery owner Emily Tremml with Buddy and her favorite reading. “Ultimately, Gone Girls is a love story – a very scary love story,” she says.

A novel seemingly about a beautiful young wife who disappears from her perfect home on the banks of the Mississippi River has rocketed to the top of The New York Times best-seller list. That book is Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, and along the way to the peak it has collected a remarkable number of literary labels: suspense novel, labyrinthine mystery, psychological thriller, irresistible page-turner, marriage guide.

To Emily Tremml the book is even more. “Gone Girl is a brilliantly plotted story told with razor-sharp prose,” she says. “It is populated with nuanced characters that have you routing for them one minute and recoiling the next – a la Jonathan Franzen and John Irving.